VANCOUVER —Railtown Café co-founders and chefs Dan Olson and Tyler Day are laying the tracks to three new Vancouver locations.

The fast casual lunch concept features sandwiches, pastries and customizable salads with a focus on premium ingredients and made-from-scratch offerings, according to Olson.

Build-your-own salad bar.

The pair opened the flagship location in Vancouver’s Railtown neighbourhood in 2012, followed by a catering component in the spring of 2013.

“We’ve grown the drop-off, delivery service for corporate from basically the back of Tyler’s truck to having six industrial vans over the course of the last three and a half years,” said Olson. “The business is definitely growing in corporate as well as events, which we seem to be doubling every year in revenue.”

With a burgeoning catering business, Railtown plans to increase their number of cafés to four.

A 60-seat location is slated to open in November in Manulife’s new development at 980 Howe Street. Another 30-seat location is in the works at 1691 Main St. and is expected to open by the end of 2016. Next, year the fourth outpost is slated to open in February with 60 seats at 409 Granville St.

It wasn’t the original plan to open three more locations in quick succession. The lease on the Main Street location has been signed for almost three years, for example, and the Manulife building was intended to open in August.

“Everything kind of just got pushed together so that all three possession dates come within a four-month period,” Olson said.

“It wasn’t intentional, but it’s sink or swim at this stage and we are definitely swimmers.”

The flagship location opened in Vancouver’s Railtown neighbourhood in 2012.

Railtown Café started as a neighbourhood joint, named for the community it was built in, but Olson noted the company has grown to garner brand recognition throughout Vancouver.

“We’ve decided to stick with the Railtown Café name moving forward for our expansion. The only tweak that we’re making is to build and design the new restaurants with the new neighbourhood in mind,” he said.

The flagship café is located in an industrial building from the 1950s with large wooden beams, concrete floors and reclaimed fir tables with metal legs.

“We opened it up on a tight budget, cheap and cheerful. It’s got a really good vibe,” Oslon said.

Railtown has hired architecture firm MGBA to help customize each new location and bring across some elements of the original.

As Railtown grows, café manager Paden Boardman and café sous chef Tabatha Stahl will manage the opening of each new location and eventually take the helm of their respective departments.

“We’re really focusing on doing as much promoting from within as we possibly can,” said Olson.

While Oslon and Day plan to continue growth, they will first focus on the new locations before looking for any future real estate.

“Probably not for at least another year until these things are running smoothly and then we’ll hopefully be in a position to continue to self-finance our expansion and the sky’s the limit,” said Olson, adding they plan to grow cautiously. “We have a 5,000-square-foot production kitchen here at our headquarters that’s already getting tight. So once we start producing for all the spaces, we’re going to need to find a larger commissary kitchen, get that up and running, then we can pursue further expansion.”

Oslon believes there is a market for the Railtown concept in multiple Vancouver neighbourhoods.

“We want to try to build an empire here and it doesn’t just stop with cafés,” he said. “It could be a bistro we open next, it could be a cheese shop, it could be a bookstore, it could be a farmers’ market. We’re just going to grow organically the way we have been doing.”

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Ishcom Publications was established in 1986 with the launch of Ontario Restaurant News, offering national coverage with a provincial focus of the news that matters to the restaurant and foodservice industry. The company expanded its regional concentration with the addition of Pacific/Prairie Restaurant News and Atlantic Restaurant News. In 2004, Ishcom Publications added Canadian Lodging News to its portfolio to offer its industry news coverage to the accommodation sector.